Ashe Lincoln

by Abdulla S. Dangoor

Not long after my acquaintance with Ashe Lincoln,
I took my nephew, Richard Moshi, who was then called to the bar, to seek his
advice as to which Chamber he should join. For many years, Ashe was a pillar
of the community and privy to its problems. It was Mr Creditor, the Editor of
a Yiddish paper who confided in him that he only consented to his daughter's
marriage to Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the Labour Party, on condition that Mr
Gaitskell be circumcised. He personally took him to hospital to have the operation
performed. Mr Lincoln joined the Royal Navy in 1939 and played a great part
in the detection of mines and torpedoes, and helped in the recovery of one of
the first magnetic mines. He then volunteered for the commandos and took part
in the allied landing in Salerno. He later, was one of the first British officers
to cross the bridge at Renagen on the Rhine, the only bridge left standing after
the Germans had blown up the others.

After a distinguished war service, he aspired to
become a Tory member of Parliament but was thwarted by crude anti-Semitism.
He withdrew as prospective candidate as some of the then members of the constituence
association were anti-Semitic. In fact, one member resigned in protest. In the
1945 election, even Mr Macmillan was unscrupulous in his utterances. "Do you
want to see dark faces across the benches?" he asked the electorate. "The overwhelming
majority of rich people in Britain," he declared, "were Jews and Armenians."
When Ashe mentioned the racial trend in the Tory party to Mr Churchill, the
great man was not unsympathetic. "Look what they have done to me" he told him.
It is ironic and a far cry from his anti-Semitic sentiments, one of Macmillan's
daughters married a man of Jewish descent whose father Leo Amery drafted the
Balfour declaration.

In 1948, Lincoln devoted his energy to the service
of Israel and advised Ben-Gurion on the need for a navy which apart from a great
advantage in military operations, was instrumental in the protecting the many
immigrant ships on their way to Palestine.

Mr Lincoln was Master of the Bench of the Inner
Temple, a recorder and deputy judge of the Crown Court and deputy world president
of the international Association of Jurists and Jurors. His book "Secret Naval
Investigator" and "Odyssey of Jewish Sailor" were of immense interest.

Last October, I attended the Memorial service held
at the New London Synagogue and watched the judges and senior Naval officers
pay tribute to a great Jewish sailor. Among the speakers was vice-Admiral Sir
John Coward. With Standards flying aloft, I realised that at long last the Senior
Service of the realm had embraced him as one of their own.